Lincoln links

Granite City lawyer’s trove of memorabilia in bar exhibit

Original Lincoln-related documents owned by Granite City attorney Bill T. Walker were provided for an exhibit that was part of the Madison County Bar Association’s commemoration of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial.

Among the items displayed by the Bank of Edwardsville was an explicit letter from a person who attended Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, the night that President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth.

The writer, who was so close to the incident that his clothing had to be cleaned later, describes the scene in graphic detail.

Another of Walker’s treasures is a service discharge order signed by the president on March 17, 1865. Lincoln decided to work that day, rather than visit soldiers in a veterans’ hospital as he had planned.

Booth and his accomplices had plotted to kidnap the president at the hospital. Foiled, Booth decided that kidnapping would not be a sufficient solution to Lincoln’s anti-slavery initiatives.

Judge David A. Hylla of the 3rd Circuit chaired the Madison County Bar committee that developed and coordinated a series of Lincoln Bicentennial events.

Among them was the appearance by assistant state’s attorney Dean E. Sweet and State Sen. William R. Haine to discuss the Lincoln-Douglas debate at its Alton site.

Another was a Lincoln poster contest among junior high school children. The 16 recipients of prizes, honorable mentions and savings bonds were guests of the association at its February dinner meeting, along with their parents and teachers.

Judge Hylla thanked Dana Ficker, Dawna Hale and Judy Nelson for assisting, and he complimented several judges who hung the poster entries in the Edwardsville courthouse.

“The Lincoln legacy is a treasure we have in Southern Illinois that we should not overlook,” he said. “He is idolized all over the world.”

Gettysburg Address on display

A manuscript copy of the “Gettysburg Address” made by Abraham Lincoln in Nov. 19, 1863, has began a month-long display at the Chicago History Museum.

One of only five manuscripts in the 16th president’s handwriting, it will be on loan from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum through May 3. A viewing and lecture for members only will take place

Lincoln delivered what he called his “little speech” during dedication of the cemetery where victims of the Battle of Gettysburg were interred.